Jim Ingraham's iChart: Browns now have more time to practice sales pitch to next coach

The bye week, or as it's known in some of the bleaker NFL outposts, The "Are you guys sure you don't want to change coaches?" week, is a built-in week off, allowing NFL teams to take inventory.

Assuming they have some.

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It's called the bye week because some teams use it to point their coach toward the door while saying, "Bye!"

Others teams trudge bravely on, anxiously awaiting that next fourth-and-1 call from the sidelines in which, depending on the time zone in which they are playing, and what their decision was in the same situation the week before, they will go for it or punt, or call a timeout first and then go for it or punt. Because sometimes you've just got to take the bull by the tail and face the situation.

The Browns, under new owner Jimmy Haslam, chose the latter.

It's the right call.

Nothing worthwhile could be achieved through a midseason Shurmurectomy.

Not unless Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden would be willing to take over the job immediately.

(Arch eyebrow here).

There will be plenty of time in the offseason to woo Cowher -- or is it "to cow Wooher?" -- and Gruden. Both have day jobs now, and this Browns gig would be the coaching equivalent of trying to land a man on the moon. Part-timers need not apply.

But in the offseason, the stable of available coaching candidates will be more plentiful. Plus, by waiting until after the season, Haslam and Browns CEO Joe Banner will have time to polish their sales pitch.

My five top coach search pickup lines would be:

"Anybody ever tell you that from the side you look a lot like Lombardi?"

"Lemme hear you bark."

"Hey Rockne, we're only three and a half horsemen shy of four -- interested?"

"No, he doesn't own the team anymore. Honest."

"What's a nice play-caller like you doing in an offense like this?"

Shurmur, meanwhile, needed a week off. The answers to the questions in his news conferences are growing more uncomfortable by the week. He's coaching for his job, and he knows it. That's a tough environment in which to work, especially when you are coaching a roster best known for having the least-known players in the division -- and you're only in your second year on the job.

Seven more games remain on the Browns' schedule after the bye week. If that sounds like a lot to you, imagine how it sounds to Shurmur.

But for now, it's Sunday. Bye week. The Browns will not lose today.

Enjoy.

-- When healthy, the Los Angeles Lakers have four future Hall of Famers in their starting lineup: Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol. The Lakers also have the highest payroll in the NBA at $100 million. As of Thursday, the Lakers' record was 1-4.

As of Friday, they were looking for another coach.

Former Cavs coach Mike Brown became the former Lakers coach when he was fired on Friday.

Brown coached one year and five games into his four-year, $18 million contract. He coached Nash for 1 1/2 games before Nash got hurt. Howard is coming back from back surgery.

Brown did coach Bryant, and in his last game as the Lakers' coach, a loss Wednesday to Utah, Brown was on the wrong end of what reporters in L.A. refer to as "The Kobe Death Stare."

Two days later, Brown was gone.

Hmmm.

It seemed like an ill-suited match right from the start. The Lakers are showtime, Hollywood glitz. Nothing is less "showtime" than the Princeton offense Brown had the Lakers running.

It's an offense that slows the game down, emphasizing back-door cuts, off-the-ball movement and sharing the ball.

So you've got the NBA's all-time most notorious gunner in Bryant, and you're asking him to run a slow-down, share-the-ball offense?

It's a little like when Brown coached the Cavs, when he had one of the best rebounding teams in the league, plus the best finisher maybe ever in LeBron James, but the Cavs refused to run a fast-break oriented offense.

Is it ludicrous to fire a coach five games into the season? Of course. But the Lakers, who on the day of the Brown firing were 1-12 counting preseason games, are used to winning. A lot.

They don't handle losing very well. Firing Brown, however, says more about the dysfunction among the Lakers' decision-makers than it does about Brown as a coach.

Still, facts are facts. Brown has been a head coach in the NBA for six full seasons, and in every one of them, he had on his team LeBron James or Kobe Bryant -- but was unable to win a single NBA championship.

That's what you call a resume killer.

-- Talk about hedging your bets. For their new manager, the Colorado Rockies hired a Denver-area high school coach and gave him a one-year contract.

I can't remember the last manager who was hired on a one-year contract. Heck, even the Red Sox gave combustible Bobby Valentine a two-year deal.

The Rockies' new manager is former Rockies player Walt Weiss, who comes highly recommended by two of his former managers, both of whom are headed to the Hall of Fame -- Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox.

If having La Russa and Cox in his corner could land Weiss only a one-year contract, what would the Rockies have offered him without those endorsements? Punching a time clock in the dugout before and after each game?

-- The Pac-12 has fined USC $25,000 after a student manager deflated game footballs prior to the Trojans' loss to Oregon last week. Deflated footballs, which were only used by USC during the game, are easier to throw and catch.

USC reported the infraction to the conference and immediately fired the student-athlete.

Speculation immediately started that USC coach Lane Kiffin, who earlier this season changed the uniform numbers on players on the USC special teams to confuse opponents, was behind the deflated balls incident. But Kiffin said he's innocent.

Seems like he says that a lot.

Weak of the week

C.J. Miles, who came to the Cavs with a reputation as a shooter, has a field-goal percentage of 23.4 (11-for-47).

Instead of a shooter, it probably would have been better if the Cavs had signed a maker.